do not stand at my grave and weep
by CosmicImbalance
Summary: Some stories should not die, even if they are about dying and the afterlife. How one orange-haired boy's story stays alive.


A/N: Found this in my files when I was supposed to be doing something completely different. I have no idea what initially inspired me to write this, but here it is.

…

…

 _do not stand at my grave and weep_

…

The old man stirs as Nurse Leah backs into the little hospital room, a tray balanced carefully in her freckled arms. "Good afternoon!" says Nurse Leah cheerfully in careful Japanese. "I've brought some lunch!"

The old man gives a grunt of acknowledgement somewhere between a snore and a growl. Excessive cheeriness gives him a headache. "What kind of crap did the microwave rustle up today?" he grumbles, as Nurse Leah sets the tray down and begins to fuss with the lifting mechanism for the hospital bed.

She grins at the old man as she finds the right button. He lifts one narrow white eyebrow in reply. She pulls the tray into reach and examines the contents. "Looks like we've got…rice porridge?"

"Kayu," nods the old man. "Good for sick people. Easily digestible."

Leah tilts her head and purses her lips. The old man notices that she does this a lot; reddening slightly under her multitude of freckles, her brown eyes getting serious. Her thinking face. "I'm never going to get a hang of the food here, I'm afraid," she despairs. He knows that she's really worrying over his health, but he told her the first day not to fuss over it, and she doesn't out loud.

"Huh. Need to keep trying. When is the exchange program up?"

"Three weeks, and then I'm flying back to Boston," says Leah, lifting a spoon to the kayu. "Ready?"

The old man's scowl looks slightly resigned now. "Let's get this over with."

Two month ago, Nurse Leah had appeared in his room much the same way that she had today, giving simply her name and rank. Confusion had ensued over the meaning of 'striped candy'. After about an hour of butchered English and shaky Japanese, the old man had learned she was an exchange student from America, split between cultural studies and nursing, so she had decided for the best of both worlds—she went to Japan for East Asian studies, interning at the hospital between classes to earn nursing credits. 'Candy striper' was an American term for a hospital intern, apparently, and while Nurse Leah was fluent in Japanese—"My best friend was fluent, and I learned it so we could talk behind my parents' back," she confided—she had never learned the Japanese equivalent for the Americanism. And, she confessed, as she was the new girl she was sent in to tend to that 'white-haired old demon' in room 150.

The old man had let up on his scowl at that. He had been systematically terrorizing the nurses in the hospital for well over a month before Nurse Leah had arrived—he had figured he deserved a little bit of fun at his age. But he couldn't quite bring himself to do that to the young girl. She was out of place in a world she was just barely starting to understand, and he could sympathize with that. Besides, her cheeriness was of the quiet sort, and she was easy on the eyes.

"Call me Nurse Leah," she said.

"Call me whatever you want," he had grumbled in reply. But it was followed by a kind look, and they settled into a routine—Lunch and 2 hours of companionship Mondays thru Thursdays. No one bothered them, in the little one-bed room. Everyone was too afraid of the ornery old man that they only went there if they had to.

Sun spilling through the window, the old man chokes down the spoon-fed kayu, and they share a small sort of silence.

…

"I need to tell you a story," said the old man the next day. Lunch lies abandoned, and Nurse Leah settled back onto her stool from where she had been straightening his sheets.

"What kind of story?"

"A story about dying. About the afterlife." The old man's voice is light, but the girl can see something like pain in his eyes.

"You aren't dying," says Nurse Leah firmly, crossing her arms as if her sheer determination is enough to keep him alive. He actually chuckles at that.

"Yes I am. I have been for a long time. I was a doctor, you know, and…something else. I know the signs."

Nurse Leah's eyes shine, and she bites her lip. "Do you have anyone…?"

The old man shakes his head sharply once. "No. All dead. I'm the last one, and I never had a wife or children."

Nurse Leah does her head-tilt thing, making the old man smile a little. On the inside, of course. "Last of what? Your family?"

"I suppose you could say that. Just listen, all right? I just want this story to stay in the world of the living," the old man chides. Nurse Leah's head remains tilted, but she acquiesces with a nod. The old man sighs, and closes his eyes.

"There was once a orange-haired boy who could see ghosts," he begins, and Nurse Leah suspends her disbelief. It's a story, all make-believe, it _has_ to be, but the old man spins the tale like it's something that he lived. It's a story of ghosts and spirits, demons and nightmare-things. There's swords and sorcery and friendship and love and it could be a manga or a fantasy novel, but it's not: it's words tumbling from the old man's lips, a recounting of memories.

The old man's story takes all of Nurse Leah's three weeks to tell. In those three weeks, she watches as he grows older before her eyes, like with every word something vital is leaving him. He's dying, just as he said, and it hurts her heart every single day to come back and watch him fade away. But she doesn't quit coming to him every afternoon, she doesn't ask him to stop telling his strange tale.

Because it's magical. It's beautiful. It's tragic. There is pain and loss that hurts the old man when he recounts it, true, but there are also shining moments of joy and victory that make the old man look decades younger when he tells them. Nurse Leah has never so desperately wished for something to be true.

…

Their last afternoon together is the day before Nurse Leah has to leave. He only has a little bit left to tell: the final battle was told at her last visit, and this is just the epilogue. He tells her how the orange-haired boy, powers restored, continued to fight the good fight for the souls of his hometown as he grew older, how his friends and family came and went until one by one they were gone to the spirit world and absorbed into the responsibilities they had there, how they were simply waiting for the orange-haired boy to leave his body and not come back.

The old man trails off into silence, a sad, distant look on his face. He seems very small in his hospital bed, surrounded by blinking and whirring monitors, and she wonders how any of the other nurses could have been frightened by him.

Then he looks up and she is reminded, as his brown eyes glint with a fierce amber light. "You are the first and only person I've ever told that story to. I won't live to tell it again. Do you understand what that means?"

Nurse Leah wants to say no—doesn't want to accept the burden of his words, wants to deny having heard his tale—because really, how could she understand what the crazy old man is trying to tell her?

But she finds herself nodding yes, because she _does_ understand in some strange way.

He gives her a sharp, satisfied smile. "Time to go," he says.

"I still have time," she disagrees, looking at the clock.

"You do," he says, the faintest emphasis on 'you' changing the entire context of their conversation. Then he says, "But you have an early flight out tomorrow, and you should get some rest," and she nods slowly and rises, making to leave.

"I suppose this is goodbye then," she says pausing at the door, looking back

"Looks like it," the old man agrees. He's propped up in his bed, swaddled in white hospital sheets and pillows. His thin arms rest on top of the sheets, tanned and liver-spotted with age. A breeze from the propped open window sets the curtain fluttering and ruffles the old man's head of spiky silver-white hair.

A cloud passes, and suddenly the room is glowing with afternoon sunlight, erasing the lines from his face and the spots from his skin and lending an odd, orangey hue to his hair. And all at once, Nurse Leah is certain that his story is true, not just the fantastical ramblings of a senile old man. He _was_ the orange-haired boy. It's an amazing revelation, for all its implications.

But the moment passes, the brilliant glow fading from the room like reality erasing fantasy. A dark-winged butterfly lands on the window sill.

He smiles at her, bittersweet. "I'll be seeing you, then," he says.

"See ya," she agrees, and walks out of Room 150, scolding herself all the while because she _won't_ see him again; he's dying and she can't come back.

…

The next evening, she finds herself at Logan International Airport in Boston, staring at the screen of her phone. She has a missed call from one of the nurses at the hospital, a friend of hers who she had already arranged to videochat with tomorrow, who has no business calling her midflight.

She knows, subconsciously, what it means, and her stomach feels icy as she presses the 'call back' button.

" _Leah!"_ says her friend over the phone. _"I'm glad I got ahold of you."_

"Is something wrong?" she asks, knowing the answer.

Her friend sighs. _"I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I thought you wanted to hear. You were friends."_

A tear traces its way down Nurse Leah's freckled cheek.

" _The old man died early this morning,"_ confirms her friend.

"Oh," she says. "Thank you for telling me." The silence stretches a bit. Then she asks, "Is…is there going to be a funeral? He said he didn't have anyone, didn't have a family anymore…"

" _There's going to be a small funeral. A few of his colleagues and students from his time as a doctor, I think. He'll be buried next to his family in his hometown."_

"That's all right," she says, and remembers a fragment of an old poem: _Do not stand at my grave and cry/I am not there. I did not die._ She pulls herself together, wiping away the tears that threaten to fall. "Thank you for letting me know."

They say there farewells, and Nurse Leah goes home.

She dreams of ghosts and demons and death gods that night, and of a smiling orange-haired boy who, for a brief time, was her friend.

…

Nurse Leah drops cultural studies and nursing and instead goes to medical school. In a few years, she is Doctor Leah, an innovative pediatric surgeon and a rising star in medicine, known not only for her skill, but for her touch with the children. She is tolerant and kind with them, and tells the most amazing stories of heroes and ghosts and sword-fighting adventures.

At one point, she visits Japan to give a talk about a new and cutting-edge procedure she's been formulating. After the talk, she is mingling in the crowd of medical professionals when she hears the old man's name mentioned by one of the older doctors.

"You knew him?" she asks in surprise.

"I was one of his students," says the older woman, bemused. "I'm surprised you've heard of him. He was a genius, but he didn't publish many papers."

"I knew him," says Doctor Leah. "I met him when I was in college, when I was doing a foreign exchange program for nursing. He was one of the patients I met with on a regular basis, up until he died and I had to return to America."

The older woman gives her a knowing smile. "He inspired you, then."

"I don't think so—I mean, I only knew that he had been a doctor at some point. I hadn't known much about any of his work."

The other doctor shakes her head. "You don't have to read his work to be inspired by him. There's simply something about him that makes you want to be the best you can be, that drives you to work hard and become more than you thought possible."

Reminded of the orange-haired boy's friends in the old man's story, Doctor Leah purses her lips and tilts her head. "You're right," she agrees.

"It is an honor to meet a fellow student of his," says the older woman, with a wry smile.

They bow and part, and Doctor Leah feels a sort of bittersweet joy.

…

Doctor Leah eventually retires, and in all her new free time she finally pens down the old man's story. It takes years to get it quite right, to get it to express the same emotions it inspired in her the first time she heard it all those years ago. But she gets it all down, and sends it off to be published.

It's a bestseller, an instant hit.

She doesn't do a book tour, she doesn't want that kind of publicity for a story that isn't hers, but she does give a few interviews. They ask her about the characters in her novel, and she tells them only what she knows. They ask her if she'll write anymore, and she tells them she doesn't have any more inspiration. They ask her what her inspiration was, and she sits quietly for a while.

Finally, she simply says, "Death inspired me."

They assume she means her years of experience as a doctor, of living with people's lives in her hands.

They can't know that she means one person, one death, so many years ago.

…

And then, one day, she finds herself stirring slightly in her hospital bed as a young nurse backs into the room, a lunch tray carefully balanced in her arms.

"Good afternoon," says Doctor Leah in cheerful Japanese.

"Japanese again, miss," reminds the nurse.

Her smile falters briefly. She is old, and her mind slips on these things sometimes. Her Japanese is something that comes and goes, and it startled her American doctors and nurses the first time she lapsed into the second language she knew so well. They got used to it, after a few times, but Doctor Leah never does. Every time she says the wrong word, she becomes a little more frightened. She is sliding towards senility, towards the great unknown that is death.

And then she becomes all the more frightened, because she _does_ know what death is. And if she is forgetting that, then she is forgetting _him,_ and what kind of tribute is that to the person who changed her life?

"What are we having for lunch today?" she says, pushing her fears forcefully away.

"I believe it's what you requested the other day when we had to get the translator. Kayu, right?"

"Good for sick people. Easily digestible," she says approvingly, choosing not to feel embarrassed about forgetting English entirely the other day.

The young nurse taps a finger against her chin, pretty dark eyes distant. Her thinking face, Doctor Leah recognizes. "You know, I've been wondering how you know so much about Japan. I thought you learned it from a friend here in America?" It's a little non sequitur, and Doctor Leah knows it to be the pretty young nurse's way of avoiding fretting over Doctor Leah's condition, as Doctor Leah had instructed upon meeting her.

"I lived in Japan for three months in college, and I've visited in any number of times. It…became a special place after that first time," she explains.

The nurse gives her a spoon and she sips at her kayu, and for a time, there is simply sun and lunch and the hospital, so like it had been years and years ago.

"What happened that first time?" ventures the nurse after a little while.

Doctor Leah puts her spoon down and tilts her head, pursing her lips, thinking. "I worked as a nurse during that time. One of the patients that I cared for was a man that the other nurses called the 'white-haired old demon.' He was grumpy and crotchety even on his good days, but he liked me well enough, and I liked keeping him company. He didn't have anyone else, not in a way that counted. I considered him a friend. He told me a story every day I came." She closed her eyes. "He died the day I left. I think he willed himself to live to that last afternoon, so that he could finish telling me what I needed to hear."

"Wow," says the nurse quietly. She hesitates briefly, before continuing, "He sounded like an inspiration to you."

"Yes," agrees Doctor Leah mildly.

"You know, you've been a real inspiration to me, Doctor," says the nurse, blushing a little. "This was just a candy striper position, you know, but I've decided to apply to nursing school. I'll be the first person in my family to get a degree."

"That's wonderful," says Doctor Leah encouragingly, and the girl looks pleased.

They sit quietly together in the warm sunlit room, and Doctor Leah thinks on coincidences and circles, and wonders if hers will soon come to a close.

…

She is lucid in the last minutes of her life, and for that she is grateful. She was only distantly aware of her family's worry about her condition in the past few month, her bouts of clarity few and far between. But now she is dying, and surrounded by faces she knows and loves and can name. It makes them happy that she can recognize them, and though their joy is bittersweet, it is still there.

They sit there, chatting, telling stories, remarking on the weather, doing anything to pass the time that is so swiftly running out. Her youngest daughter is determined that she's not really dying, that Doctor Leah is just getting old and overreacting a little. Her daughter is afraid, and Doctor Leah feels badly for that, and feels worse that she cannot really explain it to her girl.

She woke up that morning knowing it would be her last day. She had asked the doctor to summon her family as she watched the last of dawn's pale pink fade into blue. It was the late afternoon now, and a light rain was falling gently.

Doctor Leah waits, chest feeling oddly light, simply listening to her family talk and move around her. She is glad she is not alone, that she gets to say farewell. So many over the years did not have the same opportunity as she does.

"I'll be seeing you," she speaks up idly. Around her, her family breaks off their conversations, fluttering to reassure her, though really, it's them that need reassuring. They're all convinced that it really is a goodbye, just like she had been all that time ago.

A few minutes later, the rain clouds break. It is late afternoon now, and the light spills into her room like a tide of gold, picking everything out in shimmering detail. A butterfly, black against the light, flits past her window, and she watches as it lands on the sill, wings opening and closing like a heartbeat.

Movement and color that was not there a moment before catches the corner of her eye, and she looks up in surprise. There is a boy with orange hair standing in her room where there was none before.

He wears black shihakusho and a white haori, a huge sword strapped to his back with a red band. His brown eyes glint with a little gold. His smile is the same sharp thing that she remembers.

"Kurosaki Ichigo. I should have known," she says with a smile of her own.

"Hello, Nurse Leah. It's been a while," he says.

"Years," she acknowledges.

He hums a quiet agreement, and for a few moments, they share a small sort of silence.

"Thank you for what you've done," he says. "I shouldn't have placed that burden on you."

"It is a story that needs to remain in the world of the living," she says, echoing his long-ago words. "And it was a burden that I accepted. It made me a stronger person, I think."

"Glad to hear it," he says. He pauses before adding, "It's time to go now."

"I noticed," she says dryly. She isn't oblivious to her family's quiet tears and "I can see you, after all."

"True," he says. "Did you say goodbye?"

She looks around at her bereaved family fondly. "As much as anyone ever truly says goodbye."

"Fair enough. Take my hand," he says, offering it to her.

She takes it, and in one swift motion, he pulls. Her feet float to the floor like she weighed as much as a feather. There's a severed chain coming from the center of her chest now, and her body is still lying back in her bed.

"That's a strange sight," she says.

"Tell me about it," he says. "I never quite got used to it."

She laughs lightly, remembering that part of his story. Then, seriously, she asks, "Now, how exactly is this done?"

"Like this," he says softly, drawing his sword in one sudden, smooth motion and taps her lightly on the forehead with its hilt.

Everything begins to fade, detail erased before being replaced by glowing blue light. He remains though, orange hair bright in the afternoon sunlight.

"See ya," she says faintly.

"On the other side," he agrees in the last second before her entire world turns to light and peace.

…

As the circle closes and the sun sets, a single dark-winged butterfly flits weightlessly away to the night-edge of the sky.


End file.
